


Storms

by HundredSunsets



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: (so does Barriss), Barriss did not deserve this, Canon Compliant, I have regrets about this, Letta is NOT YOUR FRIEND Barriss please realise this, So here we are, alterntive title: How To Break A Jedi In Seven Steps, and I would like to apologise to her, at all, but there were gaps in her story and SOMEONE had to fill them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-27
Updated: 2016-10-27
Packaged: 2018-08-27 08:24:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8394394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HundredSunsets/pseuds/HundredSunsets
Summary: Barriss falls like rain.Just a little, to begin with. No one notices the change in the weather.And then comes the storm.





	

                                                                                                 _ **1:**_ _ **Clouds**_

Geonosis was hot and dusty, and Barriss was in the beating heart of the chaos, utterly surrounded by droids, swinging her lightsaber with wild desperation. She lashed out almost at random, striking targets that just kept coming and coming. She'd seen the footage from Naboo, ten long years ago. There had been thousands of droids like the ones she was facing now. What did it mean? Why were they back?

One was nearly within touching distance and, with a cry, she slashed at it, taking its head clean off. But there were more, at least three stepping in to fill its place, all aiming their blasters at her. _Horrible, creepy-looking things_ , she thought, mentally shuddering as she stumbled back and into  the side of the arena. Their long, featureless faces and skeletal limbs unnerved her, and she was filled with sudden terror that she could not force down. There were so _many_ of them. She sliced through the ones immediately in front of her and surged forward, cutting down more as she went, knowing that she was growing frantic but unable to help it. 

Where were the others? She couldn't see any other Jedi when she glanced around. Yet there had been lots of them, she was certain, but now they were nowhere to be seen, absent in the midst of the carnage, and _oh Force, oh Force, don't let me be the last one, it's all gone so wrong, don't let me be all alone here._

She took out another wave of droids—at least they didn't seem to have any clear battle plan or structure to their attack—and, deftly sidestepping a burst of blaster fire, tripped over something on the ground.

She risked a quick look down to see what it was, and when she did, she wished she hadn't, because she'd fallen over one of the fallen. A dead Jedi. 

Time seemed to slow. 

She didn't know his name. She didn't know anything about him, other than that his corpse was face down in the dirt. The sight was wrong, so very wrong. Jedi did not die. Well, of course they did, but not like this! Not on a simple rescue mission to a planet in the absolute back of beyond, not by the hand of a machine with a weapon in its clutches. Every cell in Barriss' body was screaming for her to act, to try and help the dead man, revive him, _do_ _something!_ She was a Jedi, Jedi were meant to help people, Jedi were meant to save people. If everyone was dropping dead around her and she could do nothing, then what was she for? What were any of them for?

She sensed more droids behind her and whirled, terror making her brutal as she hacked them apart. Something in her was shouting that this was wrong, that they might not be living beings but she was still destroying them, and this violence was senseless. She wasn't made for this. 

_Someone please help me!_ she cried into the Force.

No one replied.

 

* * *

 

                                                                                                 ** _2: Shower_**

 

_We're going to die down here._

Barriss knew this. And she knew it didn't matter. She and Ahsoka had done what needed to be done. They were expendable. And they'd both known the risks.

But she'd never expected to die like this. Not trapped under tonnes of rubble in the cold and the dark. Ahsoka's hand, held tight in her own, was the only source of warmth. She clutched at it like it was a lifeline, the only thing in this darkness anchoring her to the world. It was getting hard to breathe, and part of her wanted to let go. It would be nice to just let nothingness wash over her and pull her under. 

It was just... she was afraid. Just a little. And though it was selfish, she hadn't wanted to come back to Geonosis in the first place. In fact, she'd been horrified when Luminara had told her where they were going. Go back? To the place where so many had died, and died horribly at that? Barriss would rather have cleaned the entire Temple from top to bottom with her toothbrush. 

She hadn't said that. She'd nodded and smiled and said she was ready to leave. And she'd kept on nodding and smiling the whole way there, because there was nothing else she _could_ do. But for the briefest of moments, when Luminara had announced where they were headed so calmly, almost out of the blue, like there was nothing wrong with what she was saying... Barriss had hated her. 

There was a sound from above. Something was shifting. And then heat and air were rushing in, and Barriss shielded her eyes, because it was all bright, too bright, and even though she'd been longing to see the sun again, she found it hurt to look at the light.

 

* * *

 

                                                                                                  ** _3: Downpour_**                                                                        

She'd take Geonosis over this. She'd take anything over this. A month freezing in the snows of Hoth, a year burning under the suns of Tatooine. She'd thought all she had to do was help break the blockade over Umbara, and she _had_. Ahsoka had been with her. She hadn't been alone. 

But then she'd been told she was needed on the ground. 

That was three days ago.

Barriss had had little to no contact with anyone back in the Temple. The communication signal was patchy at best. She hadn't a clue what was going on, or what she was meant to be doing, or—or anything. It was always night. The blanket of shadow was so thick that she could barely see past her hands. And there were people relying on her, clones expecting her to make decisions and lead them through this mess. They trusted her. They had every confidence that she'd get them out of this in one piece, purely because she was a Jedi. It was all wrong. What had she ever done to earn their trust? What had any of the Jedi ever done? Most of the time they marched the clones straight to their deaths.

But here she was, with them following her unquestioningly and addressing her as 'commander'. Believing she knew what she was doing. 

She'd never been so lonely. So frightened. She felt frozen inside and out.

And there was no one she could tell.

 

* * *

                                                                                                                                                

**_4: Lightning_  **

"This cannot go on," Letta snapped, slamming a fist down on the rickety table. It wobbled with the impact, making worrying creaking noises. Barriss, her hands folded in her lap, nodded slowly.

"You know I agree," she said, shifting on the hard chair beneath her. "I'm just not sure what we can do." She wasn't entirely comfortable with her surroundings. This many levels down, it was cramped and dingy both on the streets and indoors. Even if the curtains were open—which they weren't—Letta's living room would still be gloomy, the air still stale. Barriss hadn't been able to relax in such spaces in a long time. It reminded her vaguely of being trapped under the rubble on Geonosis.

She hadn't known Letta for very long. She'd met her only a few months ago, at an anti-Jedi protest. Barriss had not been there as a protestor, but as a peacekeeper—and wasn't that a laugh? They were at war. Nowhere in the galaxy was there any peace to be kept. Letta, clocking her and figuring out what she was, had stormed over to yell in her face, incensed, demanding to know what Barriss thought she was doing there—she deliberately trying to inflame the situation? Make the protestors look like troublemakers? 

"You don't like that we see the truth, huh?" Letta had snarled, her face twisting in fury. "You've come to wave that lightsaber of yours and scare us silent, _Jedi?_ " She spat the last word like it was curse. Barriss had looked back at her, unflinching.

"I'm not very sure why I'm here," she'd admitted quietly. She didn't know why she'd said it. It was true, but it wasn't the kind of thing she let people in on. Especially not total strangers. "I got back from a war zone last night, and then a few hours ago I was assigned to this." The cost of the battle had been high. So many casualties, and nothing Barriss could do to save any of them. Jedi and clones, all bleeding out their lives in the dirt. She'd lost track of the number of eyes she'd brushed gently shut, the number of dying hands that had gripped hers in terror before falling limp. 

"War zone," Letta had repeated with a sneer. "The whole galaxy is a war zone these days. Your people did that! Your people are the ones letting it go on!" 

The protest had continued to rage around them, people jostling against Barriss and pushing and chanting, but all she did was stare straight back at Letta and say,

"Yes. They are."

There must have been something in Barriss' eyes, something significant in her hollow tone, because Letta had folded her arms, tilting her head. Her aggressive stance was shrugged off as she looked Barriss up and down. 

"You're not like the others. You want it over with."

"Yes." It was a confession that had been scraping away at Barriss for months, clawing at her insides, trying to rip its way out. But she'd buttoned her lips, sealed her feelings off from her face and done her best to ignore it.

It had been easy, really, to keep it secret. No one had bothered to ask.

Letta had studied Barriss a moment more, then appeared to make up her mind about something. She'd leaned in and whispered an address in Barriss' ear.

"Go there when this is finished. I think we might have some common ground, Jedi." Then she'd disappeared into the crowd again, gone in a blink. Even Barriss' Force-enhanced eyesight could not track her. Barriss had stood still, turning the exchange over and over in her mind. 

She couldn't explain why, but when the protest had begun to die down, she'd slipped away, following Letta's directions down into the Underworld.

"What the Jedi need is a shock," Letta said now. "A real kick up the ass. Make them take a look at themselves and the state of things."

Barriss nodded again. She'd been doing that a lot, where Letta was concerned. Because Letta... Letta _got_ _it_. She understood where Barriss was coming from. She sympathised with Barriss' anxieties, her trepidation, the awful numb sensation that gripped at her whenever she heard she was being deployed. Unlike anyone else, she allowed Barriss to talk. And when Barriss was done talking, Letta told her she was right to feel as she did. Barriss was the only Jedi Letta had ever met who had her eyes open. 

Barriss saw things as they were. The anti-war movement, Letta often told her, needed someone like that: a Jedi who _knew_.

Letta, Barriss realised, was the first person to actually listen. No one else seemed to care what she thought. _Well, of course the_ Jedi _don't_ , Letta had muttered. And thought Barriss loathed having to accept it, it was true. Her concerns were dismissed whenever she broached them with anyone in the Order. Once, months ago, she'd tried to voice her growing discontent with the war to Luminara. 

"It's only," she'd said, staring out the window of a corridor in the Temple as they walked along it, "that I don't understand why we do this, Master. Surely, as Jedi, our main focus should be negotiating to end the war, not fighting."

Luminara had smiled, shaking her head. "Sometimes, Barriss, I forget how young you still are. You must try to see the bigger picture." Which was a non-answer, and not helpful in the slightest.

By now, Barriss had decided that Luminara was the one who couldn't see the bigger picture. Just like most of the Jedi. But Letta _could_ , and that was why Barriss was sitting here.

"I'd have thought our death toll since the war began was shocking enough," she murmured. "Apparently not." She propped an elbow on the table, resting her chin on her upturned palm, and started to drum on the tabletop with the fingers of her free hand. "If we were to do something," she mused, "it would have hit close to home. In the literal sense. I think that while the war happens on other planets in other systems, everyone here is removed from it. They need to see the consequences unfolding on their own doorstep."

The Temple. If she and Letta could do something in the Temple, that would really make the Jedi sit up and take notice. But it had to be something big. Something that would pull the rug of complacency out from under their feet. Something huge. Something to shake the stars above and rattle the ground below. Something like—

The thought struck her like lightning, and she bolted up in her seat, wide-eyed. She couldn't. The Temple was sacred. _So is life, and you've seen how little they care for that._ And yet... 

"What is it?" Letta was leaning over the table, intrigued. "Barriss?"

"I..." Barriss pulled back a little. It wasn't that she didn't trust Letta. She did. But the other's gaze was so intense, and for a second she felt a stab of something decidedly _off_  flare up in the Force. Then it was gone, as suddenly as it had arrived, and she felt certain she'd imagined it. 

"Tell me," Letta encouraged. "Barriss, I am your friend. If you think this could help our cause, you must tell me!"

Barriss hesitated. But Letta was gazing at her so imploringly, and she was, as she'd said, a friend. A friend who shared Barriss' hopes and ideals. Barriss should be ashamed to keep this quiet. What she had in mind would rock the Jedi to their core. It would be worth doing, or at the very least, suggesting.

So she gathered her resolve and asked, "Which part of the Temple did you say Jackar works in?"

 

* * *

                                                                        

                                                                                                 ** _5: Thunderclap_**

When the explosion came, it did not sound like an explosion. It did not sound like much of anything. A clap of faraway thunder, perhaps. Nothing more. 

It didn't look like anything interesting either, not from this distance. Barriss and Letta watched from a rooftop miles from the Jedi Temple, the frigid wind whipping at their faces and making Barriss' eyes sting. 

It was not the sound that was the problem. It was not the sight. It was the Force.

A ripple of pain and confusion and fear hit Barriss square in the chest and she gasped, one hand flying to her mouth in shock. Death. Many deaths. She hadn't expected... It wasn't meant to be like this. She didn't know how it was supposed to be, but this was not it.

She knew who one of the dead was. Jackar. Barriss' idea had been for him to plant the bomb and leave, but Letta had said she'd spoken to him and he'd come up with a better plan—namely, _he_ would be the bomb. Barriss had been startled. She'd wanted to talk to him and ask if he was sure. It was a huge sacrifice to make. If he changed his mind, there would be no one to save him. Letta had insisted that he was very enthusiastic, and he didn't want to meet Barriss in case she tried to talk him out of it. It had seemed logical to Barriss, so she'd agreed to leave him alone and spent the past few days squirrelling away nanodroids to pass on to Letta. She'd ensured nobody would notice they were gone, altering records, shifting boxes around so that no one would become suspicious. And then she'd stepped back and waited, mentally preparing herself for what was to come.

But the wave that crashed over her was stronger than she'd ever dreamed, the emotions a thousand times closer and more real, and it was all she could do not to fall to her knees and scream. 

Letta grabbed her arm, nails digging deep. "Be proud, Barriss. This was _your_ wonderful idea. Together, we've sent a message they cannot possibly ignore."

"Yes," Barriss whispered. "They have to listen now." They had to, or all the terrible deaths still ringing in her head and her heart would be in vain. She couldn't have that. They'd died for a cause, a cause they would continue to serve simply by being dead.

_A cause they never signed up for. A cause they had no choice but to lay down their lives for._ It was almost like...

No! This was nothing like the Republic. Or the Jedi Order. This was going to change things for the better. Anyone would be glad to die for that, wouldn't they? 

"We've done the right thing," Letta assured her. "They'll be talking about this for years to come." Barriss reminded herself that Letta couldn't sense the aftershocks in the Force, but she still struggled to look her in the eye right then. She felt a small, ugly knot of resentment tightening inside her. Yes, this was for the greater good, but the dead still deserved recognition. And when Barriss looked at Letta and saw the zeal and passion for the cause burning on her face, without any regard for the great loss the Temple had just experienced, she found that in that instant, she didn't much like her friend. 

But it was too late to have doubts now, so she pushed them aside.

 

* * *

 

                                                                                                 ** _6: Flood_**

Barriss watched Ahsoka run off up the corridor and felt the last bit of hope she had left wither and die. She'd thought that Ahsoka would, with the right explanation, understand. But hearing the way she'd talked, Barriss saw that it was no good. She'd believed Ahsoka would help her if she told the truth, but that was clearly out of the question. Ahsoka would turn her in. She'd never speak to her again. Barriss, in Ahsoka's mind, would be painted with the same brush as Letta...

_Oh, no_. Letta knew Ahsoka's name. Barriss had told her Ahsoka could be trusted, that she should contact her if she got into any trouble. And this definitely counted as trouble. If Letta named Barriss, it was all over. 

Barriss had to find Letta. Fast. She had to shut her up. But how? Supposing Letta sold her out to save her own skin? A Jedi bombing the Temple was the kind of information that, if given, might see Letta exonerated—if she twisted the truth a little. The only sure way to keep her quiet was if she was... _dead?_

Barriss couldn't. She couldn't. But... what was one more death? One more sacrifice for the cause. Letta would understand that, wouldn't she? And if Barriss could get to her before Ahsoka—

No. No, there was no way she'd manage that. She wouldn't get within a million miles of Letta without clearance. Her best bet, she realised with mounting horror, was to wait until Letta asked to see Ahsoka and sneak in behind. And then she'd do what needed to be done.

But that meant—

If Ahsoka was there, she might—

Oh, Force, Barriss couldn't do it. Not that. Not to Ahsoka. 

But she had to. There was no other way. 

_Forgive me, Ahsoka. I don't have a choice._

 

* * *

 

_**7: Drowning**                                                                _

The warehouse floor collapsed.

Barriss watched Ahsoka fall, and then she ran. She shed the mask and the cloak and tucked the red lightsabers away, feet pounding against the ground as she fled, throwing herself around corners and pelting down alleyways. She hardly thought about where she was going, she just let herself be pulled away from this place. She just had to make it back to the Temple, and then she was home free. No one would suspect her. Ahsoka would tell everyone it was Ventress who'd betrayed her. Not Barriss. Never Barriss. Barriss had been in her room the entire time. 

She wasn't sorry for what she'd done. But she _was_ sorry she'd done it to Ahsoka.

She had so few friends left. Letta was dead. Most of the people Barriss had been close to as a youngling were dead. The war had taken them, one by one. Except for Tutso Mara, who'd survived everything but the bomb. She remembered her despair when she'd heard he was among the dead. It wasn't supposed to be him. If she'd known he was going to be anywhere near the explosion... It wasn't meant to be the people she cared about. She'd just wanted to make a point. And now she'd lost Ahsoka, too.

She'd never wanted this. She felt like she was killing her soul.

It would be worth it in the end. It had to be. She needed to know it wasn't for nothing, that the names and faces and voices filling up her head with their last thoughts had died for a purpose. It was like treading water in the middle of a whirlpool, trying to stay on top of it all, and if she let herself dwell on it for too long she'd slip below the surface and never come up again. The truly terrifying thing was that she was tempted to just let it happen.

_Help me_ , she whispered into the Force, as she had not done in years.

As ever, there was no answer. 

 

* * *

 

                                                                                                 ** _0: Sunlight_**

Too young to understand the dreams, not yet trained to recognise the white haze that surrounded them and marked them out as visions, Barriss did not give them much consideration. She was six years old and not prone to caring much about anything that wasn't happening in the present. 

If she had, she might have noticed a pattern. How the dreams were all coloured with the same fear and uncertainty. How they showed her the same things again and again. The glimpses of red, the smell of smoke, the sensation of something deep down inside of her stretching to breaking point and finally shattering. The feeling that she was coming undone.

 But she was six. She shook off nightmares as easily as water. And with the sunlight touching her face, nothing seemed that bad. In time, she would forget she'd ever had those dreams. 

The dreams would not forget her. But during the warm summer days, they could not touch her.

She was safe. She was happy. And even if the dreams _had_ bothered her when she was awake, she could just ignore them. After all, she was in the Jedi Temple. Nothing bad could ever happen here.

**Author's Note:**

> This all started a couple of days ago. I was checking something on Barriss' Wookieepedia page for another fic, and that was when I found out she was on Umbara. Well, not on it, but above it. And it got me thinking, what if she ended up on the ground? Wouldn't that explain a lot? And then it turned into this. Oops.


End file.
